The present invention claims a priority based on the Japanese Patent Application No. H10-304421, the contents of which is incorporated hereinto by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a digital camera which photoelectrically converts an optical image of an object, which is taken by an image taking lens, into analog signals by an image pick-up element and generates digital image data by subjecting the analog image signals to an image processing, more particularly to, a digital camera connectable to another digital camera or a peripheral equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, many proposals have been made to a digital camera equipped with a host interface for connecting the digital camera to a personal computer in order to transfer image data to the personal computer as a host computer so as to process and/or store the image data.
Recently, new standards of interface such as a USB (Universal Serial Bus) or an IEEE 1394 have been proposed, and a digital camera utilizing the aforementioned interface as a host interface has been provided.
Although these conventional interfaces are used to connect a host computer to its peripheral equipment such as a printer, it has not been considered that these conventional interfaces are used for connecting digital cameras for transferring image data therebetween.
Originally, in the USB standard, a tree structure in which a host computer is located at the summit thereof is constituted. Equipments included in the structure except for the computer located at the summit, are regarded as slave peripheral equipments which receive instructions from the summit computer. Therefore, in a digital camera connectable to a computer via a USB interface, like a digital camera equipped with a conventional RS-232C serial interface, it was impossible to control a peripheral equipment such as a printer connected to the interface from the digital camera.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a convenient digital camera which can operate another digital camera connected to the digital camera without relying on a host computer.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a convenient digital camera which can operate a peripheral equipment such as a modem or a printer connected to the digital camera without relying on a host computer.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a digital camera includes a connector for connecting the digital camera to another digital camera, an interface for exchanging data between the digital camera and another digital camera, and a controller for controlling another digital camera via the interface when another digital camera is connected to the connector.
According to the aforementioned digital camera, an operation such as a data transfer between the digital camera and another digital camera can be performed easily at the digital camera side without relying on a software of a host computer, and the operation of another digital camera can be controlled by the digital camera.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a digital camera includes an interface based on a USB (Universal Serial Bus) standard, first and second connecters for connecting a plurality of external equipments via the interface, a detector for detecting whether or not the external equipment is connected to the first and second connector, and a controller for changing an operation of the external equipment connected to the second connector based on the detected result on whether or not the external equipment is connected to the first connector.
According to this digital camera, by utilizing a USB interface, which was only available for connecting the digital camera to a host computer, the digital camera can directly control a peripheral equipment such as a modem and/or a printer.